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Gwen Taylor to join cast of Prick Up Your Ears

Friday, 10 July, 2009

Gwen Taylor to join cast of Prick Up Your Ears

Cast update for Prick Up Your Ears , a new play by Simon Bent, inspired by the John Lahr biography and the diaries of Joe Orton, which opens at the Comedy Theatre on 30 Sep 2009, following previews from 17 Sep - booking to 6 Dec 2009.

Gwen Taylor (Mrs Corden), is to join previously mentioned Matt Lucas (Kenneth Halliwell) and Chris New (Joe Orton). Gwen Taylor, can currently be seen as Peg in ITV1’s Heartbeat. Her other TV credits include Barbara, A Bit of a Do & Duty Free. Her many theatre credits include the title role in Shirley Valentine as well as About Alice, Arms and the Man, Moment of Weakness and Picasso’s Women, which all toured nationally.

Prick Up Your Ears is directed by Daniel Kramer and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, Kim Poster for Stanhope Productions and Lee Menzies.

A darkly funny and moving play imagines what really happened when, after years of creative collaboration, the door slammed shut and Kenneth was home alone. It tells the story behind the domestic life of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, holed up in a tiny flat in Islington, trading well-trodden insults and hilarious put-downs like any old married couple.

1962. Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton - RADA graduates, aspiring playwrights, and sometime lovers - plot their rightful place at the centre of London’s literary scene whilst engaged in a secret crusade to 'improve' the local library books, all in the worst possible taste of course, and acting out their own versions of popular radio dramas... with an extra dash of innuendo. But after a short interlude at Her Majesty’s pleasure, Joe is about to become the greatest, and most notorious comic playwright since Oscar Wilde, whilst Ken stays indoors re-decorating, reduced to sharing Joe’s success with their neighbour, Mrs Corden, over tea and a slice of battenburg.

Prior to the West End opening, Prick Up Your Ears will play at Richmond Theatre from 26 – 29 August, the Quays Theatre, The Lowry, Salford from 31 August – 5 September and then the Theatre Royal Brighton from 7 – 12 September.